By David Himmel

 Hope Idiotic is a serialized novel. Catch each new part every week on Monday and Thursday.

LATER THAT WEEK, LOU STARTED THERAPY. He’d gone to a psychologist before when he was in sixth grade. He was misbehaving in school, collecting an average of one detention a day from one teacher or another. He even managed to get a detention while in detention. His parents were convinced his behavioral problems stemmed from some sort of internal conflict. They had mistaken internal conflict as being a twelve-year-old class clown.

They sent him to Dr. Farber, a man who bore a striking resemblance to his junior high school’s assistant principal. Lou had four sessions with Dr. Farber and lied throughout every single one of them. He lied about his friends and girls and his grades and how good he was at basketball and anything else that came up. He didn’t want that man to know anything about him.

But this time was different. This time something was wrong, and Lou knew it. He was barely functioning, on the verge of a complete panic attack at all times. Even after his meltdown in Mexico, he felt volatile. He had no appetite. He craved alcohol. Several times a day he felt like tears were about to burst from his eyes. Thinking about Pop dying made him lightheaded. He was putting himself into therapy because Michelle told him to. But he wanted to get better.

Dr. Sharon Milner had an office in Edgewater, a neighborhood farther north than Lou had ever been in the city at that point. She was a gentle and quiet woman. She wore long dresses and colorful sweaters. Some sort of world music played softly from an iPod dock in the waiting room. Her office was in the basement of her home, and her three golden retrievers — Rosie, Daisy and Lily — put as many hours in at the office as did their master.

Lou liked being greeted by the dogs when he came for his appointments. It was relaxing enough that momentarily he didn’t feel the usual panicked sickness. It made him miss his own dog. It reminded him of sincere affection without an ulterior, selfish agenda. He didn’t even mind that Rosie, Daisy and Lily would share the big black couch with him while he prattled on about, well, everything. But mostly, he talked about Michelle.

“She’s saying that she needs to trust me. But how do I know that I can trust her?” he said as Rosie panted loudly.

“You don’t,” Dr. Milner said.

“Then what’s the point of any of it? How can you make a decision to do anything?”

“Those are the chances we take in relationships.”

“But Michelle needs a sure thing.”

“Well, that’s unrealistic.”

“But it’s not.”

“It is, Lou. She can’t bend life to her will. Things happen. Situations change. People panic and lose their temper.”

“But on her thirtieth birthday? I mean, of all the times—”

“It happened. What we need to do is understand what causes you to have those outbursts and find a way to manage them better. You can only control the way you react.”

“This teaching idea was all Michelle’s. Teachers are needed, she said. We’d be able to travel, she said. I could still write if I wanted to, she said. And I went along with it, because sure, it sounds nice. But I don’t want to go back to school for two years and become a teacher. And what if I do go through with it? What if she turns on me when I’m not making enough money for her to quit her job and be a housewife? Teachers aren’t exactly known for their large sums of personal wealth. Christ, what did she think? That I would land a teaching job, write a best-selling novel on our first summer vacation, get hired by a university to teach creative writing with tenure and a six-figure salary? She once accused me of having unrealistic dreams.”

“Perhaps she’s projecting her fears onto you. She’s putting a lot of pressure on you to provide a life that she wants that you can’t give her right now.”

“Let me ask you: Am I crazy?”

“That’s a broad term.”

“But I want to give her that life. I want to have a job and make money and not have to collect unemployment or pay for a shrink through COBRA or worry about my grandfather and what Grams will do when he dies or my dad or my idiot brother or my insane mom or my drunk friend who can’t pay me fucking rent. I just want things to be simple so she isn’t so upset all of the time. Because I can handle all of that shit. You know? On my own, I can manage it. But it’s being accountable to her that makes things so much worse.”

“You’re dealing with an iceberg here, Lou. Your financial issues are just the tip of it. That’s what she’s most upset about, right?”

“It’s what she usually starts fights over, yes.”

“But there is much more happening beneath the surface. We have to address that.”

“No. Those things are always going to be there. It’s almost like I’m not allowed to feel anything about them.”

“But you do.”

“Of course.”

“And that’s why you’re here.” She looked at the small silver clock on the table at the corner of the couch and said quietly, as if she didn’t want to startle him—or the dogs, “We have to stop.”

This is how it went every Wednesday at 9 p.m. for three months. Lou sat on the black leather couch with the dogs and talked.

“I still get dizzy spells,” he said.

“What do you think causes those?” said Dr. Milner.

“Vertigo. An inner ear problem. I don’t know. Stress maybe.”

“When did the dizziness begin?”

“Right about when I moved here. That first summer. I was at a Cubs game with Michelle and her parents. We were walking through the bleachers — her dad and I — and I nearly fell over. Just walking.”

“Could it have been a height issue? Maybe you did experience some vertigo.”

“I’ve never had a problem with that before. I would get them a lot at the sales job. Sitting at my desk, the room would do a quick spin.”

“Is there a time when you notice them occurring more frequently than other times?”

“Mornings. In the bathroom. While Michelle is getting dressed for work, and I’m getting dressed for my day of looking for work, schools and drinking.”

“You should consider cutting out the alcohol.”

“Oh, I’ve considered it. And I’ve decided against it. It’s when I feel the least dizzy and shaky and not so anxious and terrified.”

“What are you terrified of?”

“You know what I’m terrified of.”

“Pop dying. Your friend Chuck’s situation in Las Vegas. Your relationship with Michelle. Your career.”

“Exactly. Let me ask you: Am I crazy?”

“That’s a broad term.”

“Am I clinically depressed? Do I have an anxiety disorder? Because I am always depressed. I am always anxious.”

“No, Lou, I don’t think you’re crazy. Your conditions are entirely circumstantial. You have a tendency to attempt to live your life as if it were scripted. You try to foresee situations and experiences and react to those rather than reacting to what’s actually happening. When you find a job, you won’t be depressed about work.”

“Unless I hate that job.”

“There you go. You’re creating a future event to explain your current response. Try to avoid doing that. Because then you’ll be able to cope appropriately to the present conditions. And that way, when you find a job, you won’t be depressed about work. When you make a better living, Michelle will not fault you for not earning.”

“I heard what you just said, but I have to apply historical behavior here and say that Michelle will probably always fault me for something related to finances. Unless, or until, I’m earning more than she is or ever did. It’s a cross between being a spoiled only child and being, well… frankly, she’s a sexist. A misogynist, really. She wants her man to be the primary earner so she can stay home and do …I don’t know what. Raise the kids? There’s not a motherly bone in her body. Jesus… Setting the bar pretty high when she was making 120 grand before she even finished law school. Then she decides to date me. What the fuck?”

“You may be right in your assumption there, Lou. But everything else, Pop, Chuck, the job… there will come a time when those things no longer affect you in the negative way.”

“Like when Pop dies, I won’t be terrified of Pop dying.”

“Correct. It’s circumstantial.”

“But then I worry about Grams and Dad. Then Mom… It doesn’t end.”

“You’re scripting feelings you don’t have yet. Stop it. Manage the circumstantial feelings when the circumstances present themselves, not before.”

“Okay. But I’m so whacked out on all of it… all of the circumstances all at once, that I am unable to manage anything at all. I’m unable to manage my freak-outs because I’m freaking out at the unmanageability of it all.”

“I’m going to refer you a psychologist.”

“So I am crazy.”

“Not at all, Lou, no. Perhaps there’s a medication that can help you focus so that you can manage your way out of the woods.”

“Are you prescribing something for me?”

“I cannot. Dr. Khorashi can, if he thinks medication would be beneficial at this time. He’s a colleague of mine. I’ll give you his information.”

“Quit the booze, switch to pills. Modern medicine.”

Dr. Milner looked at him with a barely amused grin, then said softly, as if not to wake the dogs, “We have to stop.”